Stanley Cup

Fans at Dodger Stadium were treated to a special moment Wednesday evening before the first pitch of the Dodgers-Angels game when the Kings brought the Stanley Cup onto the field. The Kings players trotted the Stanley Cup - the first in the franchise's 45-year history - to the pitcher's mound and the Dodgers and Angels joined them on the field for a photo opportunity. Each member of the Cup champions threw out a first pitch to a member of the Dodgers. Captain Dustin Brown carried the 35-pound Stanley Cup to home plate following the ceremonial first pitches, where even the umpires took in a photo with the trophy.

Saku Koivu saw his retiring teammate, friend and Finnish countryman Teemu Selanne skate around the arena bathed in cheers last week in the Ducks' final regular-season home game. Moved, of course, Koivu quickly set aside the moment that's so close to home. Because there are still games to win. Koivu, 39, could be just as close to retirement as Selanne, but the 18-year NHL veteran center hasn't officially announced his intentions. "Very private guy, very unselfish - been like that a long time," Koivu's linemate Andrew Cogliano said.

The Kings are on the verge of making good on a 43-year-old IOU. Wayne Gretzky couldn't bring the Stanley Cup to Los Angeles, nor Marcel Dionne. Rogie Vachon didn't get the Kings there, nor did Cowboy Bill Flett. Jack Kent Cooke and Jerry Buss won NBA titles as owners, but were unable to attain the Cup as a bookend trophy. But a 4-0 victory Monday at Staples Center gave the Kings a 3-0 series lead over the New Jersey Devils. The Cup would be an L.A. Story after Wednesday's game.

A power outage darkened the SAP Center on Thursday night shortly before the Kings and San Jose Sharks were scheduled to warm up for their playoff opener, leaving the crowd murmuring in confusion and forcing antsy players to wait in corridors illuminated by dim backup lights while they wondered what to do next. About six minutes later the lights came back on and the teams took to the ice. For the Kings, everything went downhill from there. Their 6-3 loss to the Sharks was by far their worst this season.

As Dwight Howard left the Lakers locker room following his debut with the team Sunday evening, he was greeted by a large shiny object. The Stanley Cup. When he approached the trophy, he was tentative. "I just want the one for basketball," Howard said. Howard, who was drafted by the Orlando Magic as the top overall pick in 2004, has never won an NBA championship and reached the NBA Finals only once in his eight seasons with the team. He surely would rather be meeting Larry over Stanley, but after a few seconds of standing next to hockey's championship trophy, the charismatic center warmed to the object.

A fan outside Staples Center on Monday seemed to capsulize the plight of Kings fans. Above the number on the back of his Kings' jersey, instead of his name, were the words “love” and “hate.” Kings fans have a moment they can simply love. After 45 years, three owners, two lockouts, one bankruptcy and countless promises, the Kings are poised to deliver. With a victory tonight over the New Jersey Devils at Staples Center, the Kings would take home the Stanley Cup for the first time.

Seconding the Stanley Cup emotion ... Harnessed for more than seven months, Kings fans were able to unleash those feelings Saturday with the raising of the Stanley Cup banner at Staples Center. Hall of Fame announcer Bob Miller was the master of ceremonies and started off the proceedings with the line: “Welcome to Championship Saturday … the day you've been waiting for.” The banner was raised at 12:22 p.m., slowly going up into the rafters with the Kings players on the ice tipping their heads back to watch the slow progression. Involved in the proceedings were former Kings Rogie Vachon and Marcel Dionne, as well as three members of the Greene family from Newtown, Conn., honoring the memory of their daughter Ana Marquez-Greene.

For many Kings fans, the joy of being one victory away from the team's first Stanley Cup championship is incomplete because they haven't been able to hear the play-by-play call and analysis of announcers Bob Miller and Jim Fox, who were relegated to the sidelines after the first round because of the exclusivity clause in the NHL's television deal with NBC. Club executives have been working on a solution that would respect complicated broadcast-rights issues...

Dustin Brown, captain of the NHL champion Los Angeles Kings, took the Stanley Cup on a tour of Ithaca, N.Y., on Sunday, visiting some of his favorite places. Among the stops were Ithaca High, the fire department, a favorite restaurant and a frozen yogurt shop that is run by his brother-in-law. There are a handful of videos on NHL.com, including a private viewing at Brown's house, where his children recognize the Cup as he opens the case but aren't sure what to make of it once Brown brings it into the house.

L.A. Live and the rest of the area surrounding Staples Center is buzzing this afternoon in anticipation of Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final between the Los Angeles Kings and New Jersey Devils. Even though the puck doesn't drop for another two hours, fans are already chanting, "We want the Cup," as they prepare to root on the Kings to what would be their first NHL championship. The lines outside surrounding restaurants are filled with fans wearing purple, silver and black.

Dallas Stars forward Ray Whitney, who will be 42 next month, had a lot to talk about with 43-year-old Ducks winger Teemu Selanne on Wednesday during the first game of their teams' first-round playoff series. And it didn't involve swapping stories about AARP. With a timeout in effect, Whitney decided to pay his respects to Selanne, who plans to retire after the season. To his surprise, Selanne repaid the compliment. “Just saying how a pleasure it's been playing against him for so long and he said the same thing, which was very nice of him,” Whitney said after the Stars' morning skate Friday at Honda Center.

Maybe a man who has steered his teams to six regular-season division titles but never gotten one past a second-round playoff series is supposed to keep quiet about his longing to hold the Stanley Cup. That'll never be Bruce Boudreau. The Ducks coach, who will lead his Western Conference top-seeded team into the postseason Wednesday night against the wild-card Dallas Stars, unabashedly has obsessed about the best-known trophy in sports. “Think about it every single day of my life,” Boudreau told The Times on Monday.

Change or end up in a culvert: NHL style. Kings Coach Darryl Sutter was talking recently about the challenges of his profession, the changing nature of hockey, and put as fine a point on it as possible. He has coached 1,039 regular-season games, been in the playoffs 13 times and won the Stanley Cup two years ago with the Kings. From the start - coaching in Chicago to San Jose to Calgary and finally, Los Angeles - Sutter has evolved with the times and the players. "Anybody that has had success over a long time, it's not just the game that's changed," Sutter said.

Were those tears or drops of sweat rolling down Teemu Selanne's face Sunday as he skated around the Honda Center, absorbing and returning the crowd's love after the final regular-season game of his Hall of Fame career? If he wept, he wasn't alone. Selanne's love for Southern California was mutual from the day he joined the Ducks in February 1996, traded here by the financially strapped Winnipeg Jets. One sunny breakfast under palm trees, and he was home. "This is my kind of place," he recalled thinking.

In a regular season when so much has gone right for the Ducks, Teemu Selanne closed it perfectly Sunday by tugging a fellow Anaheim legend onto the ice for a final skate and embrace in front of an adoring sellout crowd. The Ducks (54-20-8) produced their NHL-best 26th comeback victory with a 3-2 overtime triumph over the Colorado Avalanche at Honda Center. Afterward, Selanne, 43, found his friend and former Ducks goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere, who's expected to join him in retirement at season's end. “Teemu's such a class act and he's known for a while that this possibly could be my last game,” Giguere said after his 33-save night for the Central Division champions.

The Colorado Avalanche rose from the dregs of a 29th-place finish last season to win the Central Division title, and the St. Louis Blues collapsed late in the regular season and lost their chance to finish atop the Central, Western Conference and the NHL overall. The Boston Bruins' reward for having the league's best record is a first-round matchup with the ever-dangerous Detroit Red Wings, who overcame a flood of injuries to earn the second wild-card spot in the East. The series, which starts Friday, will be the first playoff meeting between these two Original Six teams since 1957, when Gordie Howe was throwing elbows and ruling the corners.

The Kings have won the Stanley Cup. Let me repeat that. The Kings have won the Stanley Cup. Now, you can discuss what this means with columnist Helene Elliott, who will take part in a live chat about the Kings at noon on Tuesday. Long-suffering Kings fans have waited a long time for this, and not only have the Kings won it all, many experts think they are positioned to win one or two more Cups because of the depth and youth on this team. So can Jonathan Quick, Drew Doughty, Anze Kopitar and Dustin Brown lead the team to the elusive holy grail of hockey again next season?

Los Angeles Times columnist Helene Elliott rates the pluses and minuses in the NHL from the previous week: + Kings goaltender Jonathan Quick is on the verge of winning the Jennings Trophy, which goes to "the goalkeeper(s) having played a minimum of 25 games for the team with the fewest goals scored against. " The oddity is that Quick has played only 47 games. Ben Scrivens played 19 before the Kings traded him to Edmonton, and Martin Jones has played 18. It's a significant award and would be a first for the Kings.

The seeds of the San Jose Sharks' six-game winning streak, their 8-1-1 record since the Olympic break and ascent to a tie with the Ducks atop the Pacific Division were planted at last season's trading deadline, when Sharks General Manager Doug Wilson and his staff realized their plodding team needed a new identity and a major infusion of youth. "We did the reset/refresh, where we clarified how we wanted to play. We wanted to be a much faster team," Wilson said. He had a head start with strength down the middle in Joe Thornton, Logan Couture, Joe Pavelski and Patrick Marleau, so Wilson mostly reconfigured the wingers and defense.